Saturday, October 22, 2011

In pursuit of color

I had some free time yesterday, and there were errands to run, so I set out in my car.  But after getting a mile or two from the house, three things were clear: the autumn colors were at their peak, the sky was lightly cloudy (a perfect foil for the brightly colored leaves), and the weather was about to shift; within a day or two the wind and rain will have reduced most of our deciduous trees to bare branches. So I drove back to the house to get my camera, and set out again.

The most gorgeous trees were often in rather ugly locations; mostly shopping malls.  Do developers plant them in rows around the malls to disguise the ugliness of commerce?  I found this one, for example, behind a video store that had gone out of business.  But it was fun to drive with this as a side objective, noticing where the colors shone the brightest. 

In the end, my errands were completely unsuccessful (though I did find a particular brand of tea I was looking for, and I got some chocolate-covered marzipan (a favorite treat)).  But my eyes came home greatly refreshed, and my camera came home full of color and joy.  Despite the rain and wind, it was a lovely afternoon.

3 comments:

Maureen said...

Beautiful image for fall. You're lucky. We have so little color in the trees here right now; mostly, just leaves falling. I think, perhaps, we had too much rain.

Louise Gallagher said...

Beautiful image -- and wise woman -- to leave the errands in pursuit of colour.

Lovely!

Joyce Wycoff said...

Another example of the power of perspective. You could travel to New England and revel in miles and miles of color or appreciate what's hidden behind an out of business store. Abundance comes in different packages ... which I also write about this morning.